Martin Kippenberger sculpture worth over $1 million ruined by a cleaner


If you think Monica Geller from the sitcom Friends was obsessed with cleanliness, well, even she couldn’t have managed to create such big damage. While it is a good way to work away from your frustrations, a cleaner outdid her duties by polishing away a layer of paint from a sculpture created by the late German artist Martin Kippenberger that was loaned out to a museum in Dortmund. Regarded as one of his generation’s most talented artists, the artwork called When It Starts Dripping From the Ceiling (Wenn’s anfängt durch die Decke zu tropfen) was a loan to the Ostwall Museum in Dortmund. Valued over a million dollars, the art features a rubber ditch below a wobbly wooden tower made from slats. Indie the ditch; you can see a layer of paint that looks like dried rainwater. That wants the cleaner set out to correct.

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The museum spokeswoman was quoted saying that the cleaners “removed the patina from the trough’s four walls. It is now impossible to return it to its original state.” She adds that the loaned work of art was taken from a private collector with insurers valuing it at €800,000 ($1,105,175). However, cleaning crews are told to keep an 8inch distance from the artworks, which clearly didn’t work this time around!
[Guardian]

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